Ancient standards of volume: negevite Iron Age pottery (Israel) as a case study in 3D modeling

Offertradition og religion i ældre jernalder i Sydskandinavien – med særlig henblik på bebyggelsesofringer

Recent Publications on Archaeological Ceramic Analyses and their Contributions to the Study of Ancient Pottery Technology

A Study on Composition and Manufacturing Method of Bronze Pins from Dia Ardizi of Moorani Iron Age Site, Luristan

Changes in temple labor investment and sacrificial offerings indicate that the rise in religious authority of the Hawaiian chiefly hierarchy correlates with an increase in political centralization and the intensifying role of the chief as divine intermediary through time. Initially, temples were small public courts akin to traditional Polynesian shrines used to reaffirm genealogical ties. During a period of internecine warfare and political instability and conflict in the I5th century A.D., temples became extremely large, a practical symbol of the burgeoning power of elites as they used ritual labor obligations to reaffirm chiefly genealogical relationships and enhance class cooperation. After island unification in the i6th century, chiefly religious activity shifted to sacrificial ceremonies and the consumption of surplus goods and foodstuffs as a result of status competition. By the time of European contact in the igth century, divinely sanctified rituals associated with war and levying taxes were instituted to enhance the status and power of the paramount chief through personal displays of material wealth. The Hawaiian case appears to follow a common trajectory among complex societies, where religious authority is increasingly expressed through the political economy, and serves as a contextual model of a complex chiefdom undergoing rapid political stratification.

On aborde ici la question de la domestication des plantes et des animaux au moment du passage du Mesolithique au Neolithique ancien au Moyen Orient L'A pose la question de l'expansion ou pas de l'habitat naturel des cereales et par consequence, s'il y a expansion, la question se pose alors des traces economiques et sociales reperables archeologiquement. Est-ce le manque de nourriture, la famine, qui a favorise le developpement de la culture intensive ?

The publication presents the results of excavations at the Staryi Karier settlement (Kotelva village council, Poltava district, Poltava region) by the expedition of the Historical and Cultural Reserve «Bilsk» in 2024. The work was carried out as part of a scholarship programme from the German Archaeological Institute. Research continued at excavation site 2. Cultural layers were discovered that belong to two historical and cultural horizons – the end of the Bronze Age and the early Iron Age. Also, as in previous archaeological seasons, finds from the Modern Era were collected on the territory of the settlement, which may be evidence of the existence of a stop here on the road that led to Bilsk through the Vorskla floodplain. An important aspect of the research is the analysis of the coexistence and interpenetration of two archaeological cultures of the final stage of the Bronze Age – Lebedivka and Bondarykha – and the reinterpretation of the presence of layers of the Ivanivka culture. The purpose of this article is to highlight information about the excavations in 2024 at the Staryi Karier settlement and to analyse the antiquities discovered during the research. The methodology consists of applying general scientific and special historical research methodologies, which, in general, ensured the achievement of the objectives set out in the publication. The scientific novelty lies in the discovery and analysis of intercultural interactions among the forest-steppe population during the post-log cabin period and the early Iron Age. Conclusions. The research conducted by the expedition of the Historical and Cultural Reserve «Bilsk» in 2024 at the Staryi Karier settlement has yielded important scientific results. The Bronze Age dwelling discovered during the previous field season has been further investigated, and its location already allows us to speak of the street layout of the settlement. A number of new objects from both the post-log cabin period and the early Iron Age were discovered. A collection of antiquities from the two periods mentioned above, which is quite presentable in terms of exhibition and informative in terms of science, was assembled, and interesting finds from a later period were discovered.

BackgroundPlant shape and structure are important factors in peanut breeding research. Constructing a three-dimension (3D) model can provide an effective digital tool for comprehensive and quantitative analysis of peanut plant structure. Fast and accurate are always the goals of the plant 3D model reconstruction research.ResultsWe proposed a 3D reconstruction method based on dual RGB-D cameras for the peanut plant 3D model quickly and accurately. The two Kinect v2 were mirror symmetry placed on both sides of the peanut plant, and the point cloud data obtained were filtered twice to remove noise interference. After rotation and translation based on the corresponding geometric relationship, the point cloud acquired by the two Kinect v2 was converted to the same coordinate system and spliced into the 3D structure of the peanut plant. The experiment was conducted at various growth stages based on twenty potted peanuts. The plant traits’ height, width, length, and volume were calculated through the reconstructed 3D models, and manual measurement was also carried out during the experiment processing. The accuracy of the 3D model was evaluated through a synthetic coefficient, which was generated by calculating the average accuracy of the four traits. The test result showed that the average accuracy of the reconstructed peanut plant 3D model by this method is 93.42%. A comparative experiment with the iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm, a widely used 3D modeling algorithm, was additionally implemented to test the rapidity of this method. The test result shows that the proposed method is 2.54 times faster with approximated accuracy compared to the ICP method.ConclusionsThe reconstruction method for the 3D model of the peanut plant described in this paper is capable of rapidly and accurately establishing a 3D model of the peanut plant while also meeting the modeling requirements for other species' breeding processes. This study offers a potential tool to further explore the 3D model for improving traits and agronomic qualities of plants.

Proceedings of the 2011 joint ACM workshop on Human gesture and behavior understanding

In order to protect local cultural properties, it is important for citizens to know the vivid views of the excavation sites. However, it is difficult to recreate the situations of the old excavation sites and make them available as digital archives for citizens to view at any time. When the Tateiwa Site in Iizuka City was excavated in 1963, there was no technology for 3D digital recording of the situations at the excavation site. Also, it was not possible to accurately record the 3D situation with paper drawings. Instead, the excavators of the time took the effort to create an elaborate diorama. This diorama has preserved the 3D situation of the excavation site to the present. Nowadays, SfM (Structure from Motion) can be used to generate a 3D model of an object using photographic images from many viewpoints. Therefore, we attempted to create a 3D model of the excavation site using SfM in order to generate a good quality 3D model at a low cost. In SfM, the processing time and the quality of the created 3D model vary depending on the number of photos used, so we investigated the relationship between the number of photos and the quality of the model. In addition to creating a 3D model using images of a diorama taken with a DSLR(Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera, as is commonly done in SfM, we also experimented with creating a 3D model using images from a smartphone camera. We evaluated the differences in the 3D models generated by the expensive DSLR camera and the smartphone camera that many people carry around. In this evaluation, we confirmed that we could create 3D models with the same quality as those of DSLR cameras even with images from smartphone cameras. Finally, we created a VR (Virtual Reality) system using the 3D model created in this study, and evaluated the quality of the 3D model for VR use.

The paper presents the analysis of the natural and climatic conditions of the Early Iron and Middle Ages in the archaeological region of Priketye (Ket’ River region; Verkhneketsky district of the Tomsk Oblast, middle taiga) based on the available archaeological data and spore-and-pollen diagram of Maksimkin Yar, 58°30'N, 86°48'E, 100–150 m.a.s.l. (Blyakharchuk, 2012). The chronology of the archaeological sites and monuments covers a large time span — from the Neolithic to the late Middle Ages, including the time of the arrival of Russian farmers into the area. The aim of the study is to reconstruct the dynamics of the natural environment during the existence of the archaeological cultures of the indicated time interval using paleopalynological data from a nearby spore-and-pollen section, as well as to demonstrate the capabilities and advantages of complex paleoecological-archaeological research in the taiga zone of Western Siberia (middle course of the Ket’ River near the Maksimkin Yar village) previously not covered by such studies. The material and source of the archaeological data com-prised collections and archives of exploratory and stationary excavations of the archaeological sites from the area in the vicinity of the Maksimkin Yar village. Paleopalynological (spore-and-pollen diagram) and paleoecological (botanical composition of peat) data were obtained and published by one of the authors earlier (Blyakharchuk, 2012). In this work, comparative historical and statistical methods of the analysis of archaeological data were employed, along with two paleoecological methods (spore-and-pollen analysis and analysis of the botanical com-position of peat) with respective statistical processing of the numerical data from these analyses. The pa-leoecological block of information is presented graphically in the form of a spore-and-pollen diagram built on the basis of the paleopalynological data and two radiocarbon dates covering the studied time interval. The Bacon software was used to calibrate the radiocarbon dates and to date each sample. The studies have shown that the climate change in the boreal forest zone of Western Siberia influenced the lifestyle and economic activities of the population of the Priketye area. Correlation of the climatic and cultural events of the studied area with neighboring southwestern, southern, and southeastern regions showed their synchroneity with the dynamics of the hydrocli-mate on these territories. During the Iron Age and after the end of the late Middle Ages, there was a synchronous increase in humidity, both in the steppe zone and in the forest zone. In the Bronze Age and during the high Middle Ages, the steppe zone was humid, but less atmospheric precipitation fell out in the forest zone. These fluctuations in the moisture content are well correlated with the 500–600-year hydrological cycles in the steppe zone, identi-fied by geochemical indicators of the steppe Shira Lake in Khakassia (Kalugin et al., 2013, p. 251). Changes in the hydroclimatic conditions in the forest and steppe zones had different effects on the local cultures and could stimulate either their rise or decline, as well as migrations.

The site of Tell Atchana/Ancient Alalakh is located in the Amuq valley, now in the modern province of Hatay, in Southern Turkey. While it was previously thought that the site was abandoned towards the end of the Late Bronze Age, recent excavations at the site have demonstrated the presence of Iron Age levels, suggesting a prolonged period of occupation. This thesis presents a detailed analysis of the pottery assemblages excavated from the Iron Age levels of Alalakh; makes a major contribution to defining a new chronology for the site of Alalakh and sheds a new light on the last centuries of occupation. Based on the pottery assemblages this thesis proposes a new interpretation of the Early Iron Age period as being not a period of crisis and collapse but of accomplishment and regeneration. Moreover, by applying a more holistic and anthropological approach to the study of ceramics, this thesis investigates the patterns of consumption and of social dynamics in Early Iron Age Alalakh and links them within the broader regional framework of the Northern Levant. The morphological analysis carried out in this thesis defines a typology for the Iron Age pottery assemblages and establishes a relative chronology for the Iron Age levels. This enables the Iron Age settlement on Alalakh to be dated to the Iron Age I and II (12th-9th century BC). The functional analysis performed on the pottery assemblage recovered from square 42.10, the only square that yielded a reliable stratigraphy, results in the identification of the square as an open area devoted to the processing and consumption of food. This approach determines a change in the way food was cooked and displayed, but not in the way it was served and consumed. Finally this thesis draws conclusions related to continuity and change detectable in the local pottery assemblage and proposes a new historical narrative regarding Alalakh and the Amuq valley for the first centuries of the Early Iron Age.

Archaeological excavations at Gamzigrad - Romuliana in 2007-2008

The archaeological areas are one of the fields in which the contribution of Geomatics techniques for Heritage documentation were employed since long time and are now getting popular. In recent times, TLS and RPAS systems become more and more interesting to be studied in excavations sites for monitoring purposes and solving large scale and comprehensive mapping matters both from terrestrial and aerial point of view. The paper will focuses on these issue and on the great challenge of monitoring sites during time, integrating and conforming multiple data coming from previous metric survey projects or image data collected in the past for different purposes. The test-sites is the complex archaeological landscape of the ancient city of Hierapolis in Phrygia on which the MAIER – Italian Archaeological Mission of Hierapolis operates from the 60s of the 20 th century and where Politecnico di Torino conducted several documentation survey campaigns. Some case studies in Hierapolis monumental areas about 3D modelling from image and range data represent nowadays an interesting attempt to answer these tasks. In particular, the presented cases involve many multi-temporal datasets that have been acquired by different university staffs in subsequent campaigns, in 1997, 2007, 2012, 2015, by employing various sensors following the evolution of the acquisition techniques offers by geomatics in the archaeological field surveys. 3D models are generated by terrestrial LiDAR and by terrestrial and aerial photogrammetric surveys; these dense models are intended to be compared and integrated with newer models generated by the UAV systems employed in last 2015 mission. In the Sacred Area of the Apollo Temple, two different datasets allow to perform investigation and comparisons before and after archaeological accommodation of the sepulchre of Apollo. The 3D model was created from images captured by a curbed balloon and further by another particular nadir point of view (a man harnessed and suspended from a crane collected photos using a Rollei semi-metric film camera); an UAV flight was performed lastly in 2015 by a EBee fix wing drone. On the other hand, in the massive complex of the Bath-Church the deeply damaged East wall was kept under observation during years until the securing intervention with a castle of tubes has been achieved: till that moment the pipes structure masks almost completely the wall, even during the last Lidar survey performed in 2012. The integration with previous images datasets collected before the securing intervention and used to generate a 3D model, want to overcome this limitation in a multi-temporal integration. In such perspective, 3D data derived from digital acquisition and modelling constantly contribute to build a knowledge on the site and help to improve their communication. Furthermore the combination of digital models and direct observations of the excavations results can improve the enhancement of the dissemination aims.

VIRVELINĖS KERAMIKOS KULTŪRA LIETUVOJE 2800–2400 cal BC

Change detection on LOD 2 building models with very high resolution spaceborne stereo imagery